I need some help with my multichannel plans

[TheBatsEar]

Not too long ago i bought a new PC. I went with a RTX 4090 and a i7-14700k. That has lit my love for games again. But my sound was lacking, i just had a pair of Beyerdynamic DT-990.

So i bought a pair of Genelec 8020D and a SVS SB-1000 and that is so much better. My DAC is a MiniDSP Flex at the moment.

But now i want to listen to my games with more than two channels, so i have ordered a pair of Neumann KH80 DSP for 900€, which i think is a nice price and i was interested in comparing them to the Genelecs anyway. I'm looking for either a single KH 80 or a single 8020D to have a 5.1 channel system complete.

But obviously i don't have a DAC for it. I think i should get a MiniDSP Flex HT to solve that, it takes multichannel signals via HDMI or USB, bvut only in PCM format. Usually i watch pirated movies on my computer, so i guess VLC will output PCM and the MiniDSP Flex HT will feed them to my speakers, right? It shouldn't matter what kind of sound format the movie has, right?

 

[DVDdoug]

Are you sure EVERYTHING you're interest in is PCM or can be converted to PCM?

When I play a movie with VLC via HDMI, my AVR decodes it.

 

[ppataki]

But obviously i don't have a DAC for it. I think i should get a MiniDSP Flex HT to solve that, it takes multichannel signals via HDMI or USB, bvut only in PCM format. Usually i watch pirated movies on my computer, so i guess VLC will output PCM and the MiniDSP Flex HT will feed them to my speakers, right? It shouldn't matter what kind of sound format the movie has, right?

Yes, that will work
I have been doing the same for almost 10 years now but with Jriver (decoding everything to multichannel PCM). The only caveat with using a PC is that you will not have Atmos channels but I guess you are already aware of that
I don't have experience with the Flex HT but it shall be fine for the job

 

[Chrispy]

I wouldn't be so sure about the audio on pirated files especially for multich

 

[JSmith]

pirated files

These tend to come in many flavours... some are full uncompressed rips of the BD's including multi channel audio. Others are at varying levels of compression, some with cut down res, some 5.1, some stereo.

I don't do this though (well some TV shows a little, when they're not on my platform of choice), I buy movies I want on BD and stream the ones I don't want to keep.


JSmith

 

[Chrispy]

These tend to come in many flavours... some are full uncompressed rips of the BD's including multi channel audio. Others are at varying levels of compression, some with cut down res, some 5.1, some stereo.

I don't do this though (well some TV shows a little, when they're not on my platform of choice), I buy movies I want on BD and stream the ones I don't want to keep.


JSmith

I don't do it myself particularly but have friends who offer me things And the audio comes in various formats....

 

[ppataki]

The format usually depends on the source:
- there are (4K) Blu-ray rips where the audio format is the same as on the disc (refer to 'remux') - usually Dolby Atmos these days (downmixed to 7.1 PCM by the PC player such as Jriver)
- there are stream rips where again the audio shall have the same format as the source - usually lower bitrate Atmos or E-AC3 (and very recently, AC4)
All of these formats can be decoded properly with a PC

 

[TheBatsEar]

Are you sure EVERYTHING you're interest in is PCM or can be converted to PCM?

Not at all.

When I play a movie with VLC via HDMI, my AVR decodes it.

Does it? I always thought VLC has decoder libraries for all of that. How would VLC know when to transport the audio in it's native format and when to render it to PCM?

I think i'll use mainly the USB input of the Flex HT, to my knowledge this presents itself as a regular multichannel sound card, not unlike the one on my mainboard.

Anyway, i ordered the Flex HT. All things considered, i feel it should work.

 

[abdo123]

Get a Denon 3800